


you can call me queen bee

by vtn



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: California, Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, Hacking, Satanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 17:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1558340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bernadette Gilfoyle loves the Santa Clara Valley but the Santa Clara Valley does not love Bernadette Gilfoyle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can call me queen bee

**Author's Note:**

> So I prompted always-a-girl!Gilfoyle in Night On Fic Mountain but then no one offered Silicon Valley so I just wrote it myself. Of course, I still want every possible variation on this concept, so everyone should write it. Title from Lorde obviously. Added a few more jokes May 21.

Bernadette became a Satanist in the summer of 2001, when decided to see what kind of reaction she'd get from the other girls if she showed up at Girl Guides camp with her hair dyed black and a copy of _The Satanic Bible_ under her arm. By the end of the summer her hair had mostly faded back to brown, but she realized that Anton LaVey spoke to her like no one else had and she was sold for life.

She would always treasure the way she made the other Pathfinders squirm, though. She always enjoyed making people uncomfortable; they were always going to notice her, so she might as well be controlling their expectations.

\---

Bernadette learned to write malicious Perl scripts in the summer of 2004, when she was an uncomfortable six feet tall with bony legs that wouldn’t quite fold under her in her desk chair in her parents’ basement. They were fighting so much those days they didn’t bother her about the electrical bill, or the bottles of Jack Daniels she was smuggling down the stairs. She just smirked when she heard them pinning her own exploits on each other, too stubborn to back down.

It wasn’t the information she wanted; she wasn’t planning on stealing any credit cards or exposing anyone’s secrets for blackmail, fun though it might be. Mostly she just replaced article photos with .jpgs of Baphomet, Aleister Crowley, and Mr Bigglesworth just for variety. It was about the pleasure of leaving her mark, of getting past people’s barriers.

\---

In California no one gave her too much shit, but they didn’t give her the good jobs either. “A more professional demeanor,” they would say when pressed for what she was lacking. And what did that mean - a miniskirt and mascara? Or someone who looked up at them instead of down?

\---

At some point she stopped partying and getting high with Erlich Bachmann and became his roommate instead. She likes him, even though he unsubtly tried to start a rumor that she slept with him when both of them were just a little bit too drunk to remember. Sometimes she even corroborates, injecting details into his story. You should have seen the look on those Hooli guys’ faces when she mentioned the goat and the concertina.

\---

She likes Dinesh Chugtai too, maybe because it’s so easy to make him uncomfortable. When he moved in, she started deliberately undressing in front of him under the pretense that “it’s so hot in here, how many chickens do you have to sacrifice to get some temperature regulation?”

He turned around and stared at the wall.

“You know, the new Nest thermostat automatically adjusts to your preferences,” he stalled, “I’m thinking of creating a prototype for a thermostat with individual user profiles.”

“And how’s it going to know who’s in the house?” She flopped back down onto the couch, giving up her idea of going topless. She’d save that one for a special occasion.

“Motion sensing?” he tried, turning back around to look at her. "So it could tell based on your weight who--"

"Are you calling me fat?" Bernadette snapped back. But through Dinesh's stammered denials, he was still looking so she spread her legs just a couple more inches. Enough that she could see his hands shaking. 

It actually kind of turned her on.

\---

Bernadette likes Bighead because he does whatever she asks him to, and she can’t tell if it’s because he’s attracted to her or if it’s because that’s just the way he is. She doesn’t like the fact that people say “it’s Pinky and the Brain!” every time they stand next to each other, but mostly only because she wasn’t allowed to watch Pinky and the Brain as a kid so she doesn’t know what to quote back at them.

At one point he had this stupid fucking idea for an app that finds women’s nipples for you or something and she thinks she came on so strong when she said she couldn’t _wait_ to try it out that he just got scared out of ever trying to build it.

\---

And then there’s Richard. The least likely leader, but in a way the best one to fall in with since he doesn’t let any of her mind games faze him. She kind of respects that. She also kind of respects the fact that when she overheard everyone gossiping about what her sexual fetishes might be, Richard was the only one who abstained, saying “I don’t know. I don’t know. Why would you expect me to know that?” and “the closest I’ve come to knowing anything about sexual fetishes is...watching Barbarella because my parents thought it was a superhero movie.” But it also makes her curious, makes her insatiable, makes her want to know what it is that he wants.

She also wants that hot executive assistant who keeps flirting with him, so she’s keeping her cards close to her chest and hoping for an eventual threesome. Timing is everything.

\---

Bernadette Gilfoyle loves the Santa Clara Valley but the Santa Clara Valley does not love Bernadette Gilfoyle. It tried to kick her out on her ass back where she came from, it doesn’t give her extra pocket money for shrooms and tacos, and it sure as hell doesn’t want to take her to the prom. But she loves it anyway; she does, because she can climb up Loma Prieta in the middle of the night and look down at the endless grid of light and electricity and know she holds it in her hands and could strangle its life out whenever she wants to.

These days, she generally doesn’t want to.


End file.
